


I'm Here

by 852_Prospect_Archivist



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Drama, Episode Related: 4ps, M/M, None - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 04:10:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/793818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/852_Prospect_Archivist/pseuds/852_Prospect_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blair's back from the dead and he has something on his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Here

**Author's Note:**

> First - despite the title, this is *not* a sequel, follow-up or companion piece to "Come Here". The title just fit.   
>  Second - This is not my full take on J/B post SenToo. (That's a different story for a different day) But this possibility rolled around enough to grow into a thing of its own.   
> Third - has spoilers for 4PS, M101, and SenToo2, and some older eps.   
> 

## I'm Here

by JC

Author's webpage: <http://www.skeeter63.org/jayci/>

Author's disclaimer: The characters from the TV series "The Sentinel" are not my property, and I am not making money off of them. That's all I have to say.

* * *

I'm Here by J.C. 

Sometimes I want to just shout, "HEY! LOOK! LOOK AT ME! I'M _HERE_! **ISN'T IT FUCKING AMAZING?!"**

Because it is. That I'm _here_ , I mean. Living and breathing, on this earth, _here_. 

I want to say to Jim, and everybody, really, but especially to _him_ , "Look at me. _Look_ at me, man. Don't you _see_ me? Don't you see how abso-fucking-lutley amazing it is?" 

But I don't. I can't. 

Because everybody's trying to act like everything's normal. Back to business. Life goes on. And I want that. I really, really do. But I also want them to look up every once in a while, light up for a minute on the inside, and _see_ me. The fact that I'm here. And feel how... _amazing_ that is. And have it show on their faces - in their eyes. Like I see it in mine - every time I look in the mirror these days. 

Don't get me wrong. I don't doubt what they feel. They even told me about how broken up Simon was, and how Jim _never_ gave up. I know it was hard for all of them, too. If I hadn't survived, *they're* the ones who would have had to deal with it. Not me. 

And I'm trying not to totally focus on me, me, me. That's partly how I ended up face down in a fountain. A little too much Blair-focus. Sentinel vision, and not the kind Jim has, or Alex, either, for that matter. No, this was more like Sentinel tunnel vision, focused directly on how cool it was that _I_ , little, old _me_ , actually had within my grasp two full-blown Sentinels. I don't even like to think about all the stuff going on around me that I was missing, how freaking _huge_ my blind spots were. 

I guess that's why I've been acting the way I have. Because I want to shout, but I don't want anyone to dwell on me long enough to remember the part _I_ played in my demise. But everything I _do_ says, "Hey, over here, guess who?" 

I mean I've been breaking big and bad all over. There's one for you \- assertiveness training in one easy step - have a near-death experience. But it's as much for me as for them. Reminders that I'm still living life. And that I'm not a half-bad addition to the human race. That I _deserve_ to be back here. 

So, yeah, I told all my friends that TV crews were going to film me playing ball with the Jags. I wanted them to check me out. And I made sure that I let Jim and Simon know that I belonged out there. That I had _earned_ my place. Later, I yelled at Simon, pressing a point a little, and although he didn't turn around, I know he heard me. I pissed him off, but, hey, I've been through worse. Then, I was off and running, with a gun, by my partner's side, shooting at bad guys. Making my presence known with a bang. 

And we won't even talk about how I pushed Jim about that bastard, Brad Ventriss, or how I handled Chancellor Edwards and her so-called meeting, or how I made _sure_ that I was there to see things through to the end in Sierra Verde. A little too close to the end for my tastes. But then again, having paramedics leave me for dead on a lawn was a whole lot closer. 

Those were sort of my variations on shouting. Trying to draw attention to The Amazing Blair Sandburg. I mean, you get it, don't you? Not everybody can pull off that trick. Face it, people die every day. And they *don't* come back. 

But life does go on, it _has_ been business as usual, and everybody's acting so damned _normal_. *Jim's* acting so damned normal. Which is the hardest to take. Because we both know that things between us are anything but. 

With everyone else in my life, acting normal will probably _lead_ to normal. But with Jim, it's just a sign that we've lost a lot of ground. And gaining it back may be the trick I *can't* pull off. 

I can't even make him _see_ me. 

I'm just going to blurt something out here. 

Jim's in love with me, and has been for a long time. I love the hell out of him, too. Should be simple, but it's not. He's had issues, I've had different issues. Hasn't exactly made for a meeting of the minds, or _bodies_ , in spite of the fact that our hearts got there a long time ago. Our bodies could have made it long ago too, but Jim's a real stickler for some things. He just won't go there with me until all the pieces have clicked into place in his mind. 

And it's been taking a long time. Patience is a virtue that I usually don't lay claim to, but I figured I _had_ time. The years with him have been a blast, and if all I had to do was live life as usual until he could get his head completely around it - fine. I could do that. I'd be here when he was ready. I wasn't going anywhere. 

Trust me, there's nothing like regaining consciousness, bruised, and dazed, and spitting up water, to drive home how wrong a person can be. 

I almost _did_ go somewhere - permanently. 

And now it doesn't look like Jim is _ever_ going to be ready for me... for us. 

Fine, I know what you're thinking. It was already going _slow_. I can do the math - almost four years slow. But I had _time_ , remember? And I had already made my choice. To ride the rollercoaster, gripping the bars tightly, hair flying in the wind, strapped into the seat next to Jim. In it to win it. 

So, it was going slow, but at least it was _going_. We were getting to know each other. Getting comfortable in each other's space. _Way_ comfortable. Everyday was bringing us a little closer. 

I admit that I was ready to jump his bones _long_ before I fell in love with him. I'm not sure how it worked for him, but I think the emotional connection was the stronger draw at first. But we both got there, in love, in lust. But just not _there_. 

We skirted around the stuff we weren't ready for. Around and around, over and over. Still, we got _real_ close a couple of times. After we got back from Peru... after Incacha died... Close but no cigar. But we were going to make it. I'm sure we both felt that. Counting on all that _time_ that was supposed to be stretched ahead of us. 

Then Jim hit a wall, and things got a little tense. I think it was when he finally had every piece of the Sandburg-Ellison puzzle in place. Everything fitting properly - tongue in groove. And if I had been there, at that moment... we probably would have had a _long_ talk... naked. 

But I missed it. 

I was working. Not, my own stuff, mind you. Cascade PD work. But still I missed it. And when Jim stepped back from that completed puzzle, that image of him and I as friends, partners, lovers... connected not just by a Sentinel/Guide bond, but as soulmates... he finally got his first glimpse of the Big Picture. And he took off, so that he could be alone. 

The 'Big Picture' being how we would face the world. I always knew that would be the subject of the 'Big Talk'. But I wanted it to be a talk we would have in each other's arms after an orgasm or three, after we had professed out loud our undying love and our lifelong commitment. 

Individually, we had come to terms with most everything. If the world just consisted of that loft apartment, we'd have been an old married couple by now. 

I know him well enough to have seen how far we had come. I could see him relaxing into us more and more. Comfortable with me in his face, in his home, in his job. Comfortable with me in his life. Me, a _man_. 

But, I knew it would trip him up to worry about when Jim and Blair became "Jim and Blair" to the force, to his father and brother, even probably to Carolyn. Of course, I thought by then we would have been buried deep inside each other enough times, that he'd let me hold his hand through it, so that we could make decisions that were good for the both of us. 

I did _not_ want him to take that bone away somewhere to gnaw on it. I figured that upright nature of his wouldn't allow him to ask me to make what he would see as a sacrifice, and he took away my chance to offer. Without the cards on the table, I couldn't even put a bid in. 

I had no choice but to wait until he worked through it. Knowing for sure that he would come to me. Damn, that sounds so arrogant now, cocky, even. And stupid. I mean I _wrote_ it - 'fear based choices'. Yet I let him just try to work it out in his own head. It had taken _years_ to get to that point. That fucking close, and I let it ride. 

And it wasn't pretty. No bantering and bickering, folks, we were bitching and barking. Everything was touchy, blown out of proportion. We had never been that pissed at each other. All that anger, and still tap-dancing around. 

Maybe I should have just tried one of his maneuvers... thrown him against a wall and let nature take its course. Well, let nature take Blair Sandburg's course. Two fistfuls of clothes and my face close to his, segueing smoothly into clothes flying across the room, and my face going in for the kill... or rather... kiss. Using every trick in my book to have him trembling and so needy that he would think nothing of promising me _anything_ , including a nice, long heart-to-heart. 

Hindsight. If I coulda, woulda, shoulda. 

Still, the gods were smiling on us one crazy night. Could have been just another tangle with Cascade's baddest, but after what Jim told me later... I calculated that with enough nights of Gabe's words replaying in his head, he would have found his way to the doorway of my room, serious look on his face, already mostly hard inside his shorts, ready to talk and screw. In that order too, knowing Jim. As much as he hates to talk, he wouldn't have gotten down and dirty with me until he had settled things. 

Then, _she_ came along. And the rest is history. Not. Everything went to hell. And we almost didn't make it back. Hell, we _still_ haven't made it all the way back. 

Now things are just _normal_. 

And I don't know what to do. 

He still jokes with me, he still bullshits with me, he still works with me, and yeah, he still _lives_ with me. But he doesn't _see_ me. 

And I want that. 

Bad. 

I know he's glad that I'm not dead. I know that he feels that it's just and fitting that he had a large part in that. Maybe he can't get past what he sees as his role in the 'dead' part. It has to be something, because he's not stupid, and there's been no bigger clue than the vision of the panther and wolf merging. Not in my book. But he's ignoring the significance. Damn, he's not seeing the ' _Bigger_ Picture'. 

Maybe it's back to the old reliable. Fear-based response. Afraid of getting close and losing me again, afraid of making the same mistakes, afraid of _me_ making the same mistakes. Afraid of history repeating itself. 

I don't know. 

But I know he still loves me. He's just lost sight of it. He's lost sight of _me_. 

And I want to shout out. 

I want to cry out. 

I want to just plain cry. 

But that's too pathetic. After all I've been through, to waste my energy like that. To cry myself to sleep in that spare room that I've claimed, waking up to teach another class, solve another case, shoot the shit with everybody like things are so fucking ordinary. 

When all I want to do is shout from the rooftops about how amazing it is to be alive. To yell at everyone at the top of my lungs and ask, "How come your faces just don't break into smiles from the sheer _positivity_ of it when I walk into a room?" To scream at Jim, "Look at me, man! Don't you see? I got a second fucking chance at life... that means *we've* got a second chance at _us_." 

Yeah, well, I've got my own fear. That he'll look at me, those blue eyes drilling into me, seeing me for the first time in a long time, and in that Ellison quiet storm way, shout back, "What _I_ see, is that you got us in this mess in the first place." 

Followed by that crazy film loop of not needing me, not trusting me, my shit packed in boxes, an empty loft, me being tossed in a fountain. The nightmare loop that doesn't include two men discovering just how powerfully linked they really are. 

So, I've just been trying to make my presence _felt_. Laughing loud, talking loud, shooting loud guns - but I'm not getting my message across. Not getting through at all. 

Loud is _not_ working. 

Maybe I'll try something different. 

Something Sentinel-soft. 

I could start with a whisper. 

Catch him off guard. Catch his eye. Move quietly back into his line of sight. Just mosey on into his personal space's personal space. Settle in where I belong. 

That might actually work. He might growl, but if I'm not shouting, maybe he won't be tempted to shout back. We've done the anger thing; I don't want to waste anymore time on that. 

I'll just stay a hair's breadth away, circling. Eyeing him, maybe add my own low growls. Remind him of the wolf. He can sniff me, get familiar with it again. Listen to how my heart _still_ beats in sync with his. He might even reach out and touch those places that he labelled 'safe' way back when, and see that I'm still here, *we're* still here. 

And maybe we can get past it. Past 'normal'. 

Maybe, just maybe, when he's allowed his senses to line up and lock on me again, he'll bend down for a taste. This time of the living, breathing Blair Sandburg. 

And we can finally move past the place where four years of taking it slow left us. 

And just get on with it. 

Life's too short. 

I no longer have the luxury of taking forever to _get_ there. I want to spend forever _being_ there. 

Okay listen up. 

The announcer's at the mike... 

Coming to the mound, ladies and gentlemen, we have old #29, Blair Sandburg. He's winding up, and here's the pitch... 

"...hey...jim...I'm _here_..." 

**THE END**


End file.
